Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] Reliance on Experts
[email protected]
Sometimes. Sometimes the newbie unschooler might wander in here and gets some
reassurance that what she is doing is OK -- from all those experts who got to
be experts by doing.
Or they make their way to enough different places to be able to compare and
decide what is best for them and -- ta da -- some of the different places have
experts who are titled, degreed, published, etc., or none of the above.
Giving parents the confidence to sort things out is fantastic imo. Dismissing
any possible source of info simply because it is from an acknowledged expert
is not helping parents though. Degreed or not, unschoolish or not, they may
have something helpful to say. Which, put together with other info, might help a
parent.
If we let our personal experiences (my son was not happy in ps, for instance)
color our reactions and cause a knee-jerk reaction every time a certain
flavor of expert is available, we miss out on a lot. It's easy to do, but not
helpful.
My 2 cents -- why not take it all in, evaluate it with confidence, realize
the expert is right or wrong for you, and learn something.
Today's email brought this whole series of posts on another list from a Mom
concerned about her parenting style. She is, for one thing, protective of her
son being outside alone. Now, it does her no good for me or some expert to
decree that she should or should not allow her son to be outside alone. What she
found helpful was the range of responses she received -- she seemed to be
genuinely helped by hearing a lot of different takes on how other parents handle
things. None of the positions was dismissed as being from an expert -- or not --
and therefore worthy. Now, and as she goes along, she can carve her own
place.
OTOH, we may individually decide never to listen to an expert with a degree.
That may suit us for various reasons. We may decide that anything that isn't
completely counterculture is necessarily wrong -- and avoid anything from a
mainstream pov. Or we may come to a list like this and only want to hear
affirmations that we are allowed to ignore experts. Poof -- you are given permission
by a list to do what you want to do.
Over-reliance on experts, lack of confidence, damaging conformity -- all bad
things, all things to watch out for. If some of us choose to read the whole
body of information available though -- I don't see the problem with that.
Limiting each other as we try to figure things out doesn't seem helpful to me.
Guess that's more than 2 cents. :)
Nance
In a message dated 1/4/2004 10:50:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
Message: 18
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 19:07:46 -0800
From: pam sorooshian <pamsoroosh@...>
Subject: Reliance on Experts (Was - Re: The lovely Jane Jacobs)
We live in an era in which parents hardly trust themselves at all -
don't rely on their own good sense, their own experience, their love
for their own children, their own traditions, their own values, the
gentle examples of more experienced friends and relatives, but instead
are "parenting advice" junkies, spending millions of dollars on
parenting classes, books, magazines, counselors, etc, looking to
experts to help them make every possible decision. Over-reliance on
experts makes parents feel they are never doing enough, never making
good enough decisions. Parents are persuaded by first one expert and
then another. Their approach to parenting does not come from deeply
held personal beliefs about what it means to care for and rear a new
human being - instead they try out the newest parenting fads, often one
after another, with increasing desperation when they don't "work" (kids
are still kids with their own individual strengths and weaknesses) and
they feel like failures when they don't feel the deep satisfaction that
the experts tell them parenting ought to bring them. Relying on experts
makes parents fearful and anxious about doing the wrong thing since
they are "not experts" themselves. It drains the confidence from
parents and the joy from family life.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
reassurance that what she is doing is OK -- from all those experts who got to
be experts by doing.
Or they make their way to enough different places to be able to compare and
decide what is best for them and -- ta da -- some of the different places have
experts who are titled, degreed, published, etc., or none of the above.
Giving parents the confidence to sort things out is fantastic imo. Dismissing
any possible source of info simply because it is from an acknowledged expert
is not helping parents though. Degreed or not, unschoolish or not, they may
have something helpful to say. Which, put together with other info, might help a
parent.
If we let our personal experiences (my son was not happy in ps, for instance)
color our reactions and cause a knee-jerk reaction every time a certain
flavor of expert is available, we miss out on a lot. It's easy to do, but not
helpful.
My 2 cents -- why not take it all in, evaluate it with confidence, realize
the expert is right or wrong for you, and learn something.
Today's email brought this whole series of posts on another list from a Mom
concerned about her parenting style. She is, for one thing, protective of her
son being outside alone. Now, it does her no good for me or some expert to
decree that she should or should not allow her son to be outside alone. What she
found helpful was the range of responses she received -- she seemed to be
genuinely helped by hearing a lot of different takes on how other parents handle
things. None of the positions was dismissed as being from an expert -- or not --
and therefore worthy. Now, and as she goes along, she can carve her own
place.
OTOH, we may individually decide never to listen to an expert with a degree.
That may suit us for various reasons. We may decide that anything that isn't
completely counterculture is necessarily wrong -- and avoid anything from a
mainstream pov. Or we may come to a list like this and only want to hear
affirmations that we are allowed to ignore experts. Poof -- you are given permission
by a list to do what you want to do.
Over-reliance on experts, lack of confidence, damaging conformity -- all bad
things, all things to watch out for. If some of us choose to read the whole
body of information available though -- I don't see the problem with that.
Limiting each other as we try to figure things out doesn't seem helpful to me.
Guess that's more than 2 cents. :)
Nance
In a message dated 1/4/2004 10:50:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
Message: 18
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 19:07:46 -0800
From: pam sorooshian <pamsoroosh@...>
Subject: Reliance on Experts (Was - Re: The lovely Jane Jacobs)
We live in an era in which parents hardly trust themselves at all -
don't rely on their own good sense, their own experience, their love
for their own children, their own traditions, their own values, the
gentle examples of more experienced friends and relatives, but instead
are "parenting advice" junkies, spending millions of dollars on
parenting classes, books, magazines, counselors, etc, looking to
experts to help them make every possible decision. Over-reliance on
experts makes parents feel they are never doing enough, never making
good enough decisions. Parents are persuaded by first one expert and
then another. Their approach to parenting does not come from deeply
held personal beliefs about what it means to care for and rear a new
human being - instead they try out the newest parenting fads, often one
after another, with increasing desperation when they don't "work" (kids
are still kids with their own individual strengths and weaknesses) and
they feel like failures when they don't feel the deep satisfaction that
the experts tell them parenting ought to bring them. Relying on experts
makes parents fearful and anxious about doing the wrong thing since
they are "not experts" themselves. It drains the confidence from
parents and the joy from family life.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
pam sorooshian
On Jan 5, 2004, at 2:56 PM, marbleface@... wrote:
dismissing info because it comes from an expert - with degrees or
whatever. But when it comes to parenting and homeschooling it is good
advice to remain skeptical even WHEN an advice-giver is a credentialed
expert.
And, we're not talking about just "a person with recognized expertise"
but we're talking about experts in the sense that they have some kind
of degree or credential on which their "expertness" is based.
-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.
> Dismissing any possible source of info simply because it is from anIt is the opposite that is being supported though. Nobody is suggesting
> acknowledged expert
> is not helping parents though.
dismissing info because it comes from an expert - with degrees or
whatever. But when it comes to parenting and homeschooling it is good
advice to remain skeptical even WHEN an advice-giver is a credentialed
expert.
And, we're not talking about just "a person with recognized expertise"
but we're talking about experts in the sense that they have some kind
of degree or credential on which their "expertness" is based.
-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.
Betsy
**
It is the opposite that is being supported though. Nobody is suggesting
dismissing info because it comes from an expert - with degrees or
whatever. But when it comes to parenting and homeschooling it is good
advice to remain skeptical even WHEN an advice-giver is a credentialed
expert.**
I've been thinking about this thread off and on today while doing the
laundry, etc.
I think a flaw with some types of social sciences is that individuals
are transformed into numbers and aggregated together. From that
accumulation of data, conclusions are drawn and then applied back to
people in general. Particularly in education we see experts (sometimes)
applying rules that might be true in general (in the institutional
setting) but that can be far from suitable in an individual case. For
example, the "best" technique for encouraging reading in a generic 8
year old might not be best for Esmerelda.
There is so much variation in human personality, taste and manner of
thinking that a one-sized-fits-all answer from an expert is not often
the best answer for a given individual. So a mother or father's
expertise in knowing their child could be much more important than a
researcher's expertise in knowing "the field".
Betsy
PS Professional expertise is often filtered through journalists before
it reaches the public. It can certainly be oversimplified and even
misunderstood in this process. Being misquoted and mangled in the press
may be one reason that "experts" can seem so boneheaded. But not the
only reason. <g>
It is the opposite that is being supported though. Nobody is suggesting
dismissing info because it comes from an expert - with degrees or
whatever. But when it comes to parenting and homeschooling it is good
advice to remain skeptical even WHEN an advice-giver is a credentialed
expert.**
I've been thinking about this thread off and on today while doing the
laundry, etc.
I think a flaw with some types of social sciences is that individuals
are transformed into numbers and aggregated together. From that
accumulation of data, conclusions are drawn and then applied back to
people in general. Particularly in education we see experts (sometimes)
applying rules that might be true in general (in the institutional
setting) but that can be far from suitable in an individual case. For
example, the "best" technique for encouraging reading in a generic 8
year old might not be best for Esmerelda.
There is so much variation in human personality, taste and manner of
thinking that a one-sized-fits-all answer from an expert is not often
the best answer for a given individual. So a mother or father's
expertise in knowing their child could be much more important than a
researcher's expertise in knowing "the field".
Betsy
PS Professional expertise is often filtered through journalists before
it reaches the public. It can certainly be oversimplified and even
misunderstood in this process. Being misquoted and mangled in the press
may be one reason that "experts" can seem so boneheaded. But not the
only reason. <g>
[email protected]
In a message dated 1/5/04 11:43:08 PM, ecsamhill@... writes:
<< So a mother or father's
expertise in knowing their child could be much more important than a
researcher's expertise in knowing "the field". >>
I think where the statistics can be helpful is when a mother (or more usually
a father) takes a child in for medical help or counselling for something
which he's sure is a serious flaw in his child, and the experts and say
"Statistically, your child is well in the range of normal [so leave her alone about it,
she's fine]."
Psychology and Sociology were greatly disparaged and many universities
wouldn't count them as science, but they were social sciences or "soft sciences"
because their stuff was hard to prove, and I think that's why they moved from
observation and descriptions of observations and testing more the way unschoolers
are testing by doing in a natural environment, to lab-tests and statistics.
Instead of finding how people behave in their natural habitats (as biologists
still do without criticism), they went to laboratory tests where people copy
patterns or respond to stimuli (while sitting in a chair in a lab) and then
measure and chart how they learn and react. Then they try to apply that to
normal life. Some things apply much better than others.
What they don't study very well is how regular people act in regular
situations.
A lot of the school reform studies and educational research done in the 60's
found some pretty good stuff, but it was pooh-poohed as soft-science nonsense.
The arguments against grading, the principle that the way the teacher treats
a child affects how the child sees himself and moreover that if a teacher is
given false information about a child, the teacher will react to the
description instead of the child himself===those studies were pretty awful, because
they used real kids and teachers, and real kids were treated better or worse by
real teachers based on scrambled "test scores" and reports from alleged former
teachers (the researchers).
An argument back against doing away with grades and measures though was that
kids in ungraded classrooms were interviewed about who in their class was best
in math, who was the best reader, etc, and who needed most help, and the kids
knew better than the teacher did, because the teacher was going by
performance on tests and assignments. But still, not grading didn't give the kids any
anonymity or safety from the judgment of others.
So I think it's interesting to know what people have learned about classroom
behavior if one is going to work in a classroom, and it might be helpful even
for people who are going to run big homeschooling groups to be a little aware
of interpersonal realities and potential problems, but if each of those
studies and principles is seen as one tiny piece in a huge, changing puzzle it's
more helpful than if any one of them is seen as The Big News that changes
anything.
Sandra
<< So a mother or father's
expertise in knowing their child could be much more important than a
researcher's expertise in knowing "the field". >>
I think where the statistics can be helpful is when a mother (or more usually
a father) takes a child in for medical help or counselling for something
which he's sure is a serious flaw in his child, and the experts and say
"Statistically, your child is well in the range of normal [so leave her alone about it,
she's fine]."
Psychology and Sociology were greatly disparaged and many universities
wouldn't count them as science, but they were social sciences or "soft sciences"
because their stuff was hard to prove, and I think that's why they moved from
observation and descriptions of observations and testing more the way unschoolers
are testing by doing in a natural environment, to lab-tests and statistics.
Instead of finding how people behave in their natural habitats (as biologists
still do without criticism), they went to laboratory tests where people copy
patterns or respond to stimuli (while sitting in a chair in a lab) and then
measure and chart how they learn and react. Then they try to apply that to
normal life. Some things apply much better than others.
What they don't study very well is how regular people act in regular
situations.
A lot of the school reform studies and educational research done in the 60's
found some pretty good stuff, but it was pooh-poohed as soft-science nonsense.
The arguments against grading, the principle that the way the teacher treats
a child affects how the child sees himself and moreover that if a teacher is
given false information about a child, the teacher will react to the
description instead of the child himself===those studies were pretty awful, because
they used real kids and teachers, and real kids were treated better or worse by
real teachers based on scrambled "test scores" and reports from alleged former
teachers (the researchers).
An argument back against doing away with grades and measures though was that
kids in ungraded classrooms were interviewed about who in their class was best
in math, who was the best reader, etc, and who needed most help, and the kids
knew better than the teacher did, because the teacher was going by
performance on tests and assignments. But still, not grading didn't give the kids any
anonymity or safety from the judgment of others.
So I think it's interesting to know what people have learned about classroom
behavior if one is going to work in a classroom, and it might be helpful even
for people who are going to run big homeschooling groups to be a little aware
of interpersonal realities and potential problems, but if each of those
studies and principles is seen as one tiny piece in a huge, changing puzzle it's
more helpful than if any one of them is seen as The Big News that changes
anything.
Sandra